Nora's body began to shiver as she slowly came to. The incessant beeping of an alarm aided to rouse her from her sleep. She groggily opened her eyes in confusion. Was that her alarm to get up to go to work?
She soon came to the realisation that she was not in bed and that she was very, very cold. And then she remembered. She remembered the war, she remembered the vault, she remembered that man taking Shaun, and she remembered Nate being shot.
As the doors to her pod opened up, Nora stumbled out, tears already streaming down her face as the raw grief of losing her son and her beloved husband hit her. She placed her shaking hands on the exterior of his pod as her vision blurred. Nate was slumped, looking as blissful as though he were asleep. Nora called out his name, her voice sounding hoarse from being neglected.
"I'll find him Nate, I'll find the bastard who did this." She croaked as her hand found its way to the control panel on his pod. She quickly opened it and let out a sob as she faced the body of her husband. She traced the outline of his handsome face before finding her way to the dog tags that hung around his neck. A sob hitched in her throat as she looked at the golden ring on his left hand. Nora took his hand in her own, his cold fingers no longer supplying the supportive grip of the past, and slipped the ring into her palm.
"I love you Nate. I love you so, so much." Nora gave one final, tearful farewell to her husband before she shut the pod door again.
Once she'd wiped the tears from her eyes, and her body had warmed up considerably, she took in her surroundings. The occupants of the other pods were showing no signs of life, a chilling realisation fled through Nora that she was the only one alive before her thoughts brought her to the second room.
Riley.
Nora hastily made her way toward the door, she was praying that Riley was okay, that her pod was still intact. She slid to a halt when she opened the door and was faced with a monstrously sized cockroach. Nora let out whimper as goosebumps appeared on her skin. She'd always hated cockroaches, too many legs, and now there was a huge, and highly aggressive one in front of her. As the roach ran towards her, Nora shot out her foot, kicking the roach away. She quickly ran forward and jumped, succeeding I'm squashing the animal.
"What the hell?" She muttered as she looked down at the creature, Nora's eyes glimpsed a tiny black object sitting on a container just outside the door. A gun. Nora quickly reached out to grab the pistol.
"Just in case." She said to no one in particular before making her way to the other vault door. Her heart skipped a beat when she discovered it was already open. She quickly ran inside and felt her stomach lurch. Riley's pod was open, and she was nowhere to be seen.
Riley took another shot of the alcohol placed in front of her. The action of which resulted in the loud cheers of the spectators surrounding her. She grinned and let out a victorious 'whoop' as the patrons of The Third Rail cheered her on. Many of them were exchanging bottlecaps, as the young woman had attracted quite the crowd of betters.
Riley tried standing up but the alcohol in her system did not agree with her. She giggled to herself as she stumbled away from the counter of the bar. She drunkenly misinterpreted how big the step she was taking was, and felt herself plummeting toward the ground before the felt two strong arms save her from a highly embarrassing fall. Riley looked up to see her saviour and was met with the black lenses of sunglasses.
"Hiya there... you know that it's not sunny outside... I mean here... what's it called?" She scrambled for words, her speech fractured and slurred.
"You mean 'inside'? You never were the sharpest were you Riley?" The man with the sunglasses grinned as he helped his friend towards her room.
Riley stopped walking, finally acknowledging the playful insult.
She pointed her finger into her friends chest, in hopes it would stress her point.
"I'll have you know... I'm a very sharp tool. Sharpest... won't get sharper." She giggled as if some hilarious joke had been told.
"So, how many fights did you get yourself into this time?" He said as he adjusted his grip on Riley, giving her extra support.
"Only three." Riley sounded disappointed as she replied.
"Well gee, if that ain't your new personal record, soon we'll have to find you another hobby."
"Oh very... funny Simon." Riley responded, her eyes drooping ever so slightly. Deacon inwardly sighed at the fake name. He actually wanted to tell Riley the truth. About him, about the Railroad, about how them bumbing into each other hadn't been a coincidence. Unfortunately, he couldn't do anything until he was 100% sure that she'd make a good agent for the Railroad.
She'd probably need to stop drinking so much, and drop the fondness for certain chems that she had. Deacon looked down at the young girl in his arms, she barely looked an adult. He slowly lowered he to her bed and smiled at how peaceful the fiery young girl looked right now. She was going to have one hell of a headache tomorrow.
"See you tomorrow, Sparks." Deacon grinned before shutting the door softly, boy did he have something big planned for her.